


A revolution is a simple thing

by elareine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Anastasia AU, But no knowledge of either required, Canon Temporary Character Death, Families of Choice, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Romance, Swearing, Uses elements from both musical and movie, as well as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 17:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12392358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elareine/pseuds/elareine
Summary: Dick Grayson kept surprising Jason Todd. Also, he might be a long lost princess. Or something like that.





	A revolution is a simple thing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to prettylittlepliers for the beta job and for not laughing at this AU.

Something was up in Gotham. It had been a while since Jason had seen it like that - lively, whispering, gossiping as if a wrong word couldn’t put you behind bars (or worse) these days. Whatever juicy rumour had woken them up, it was probably nonsense, but in Jason’s line of work he couldn’t exactly afford to ignore it. So he went to the market.

There was a handsome, old-fashioned watch on one table, and Jason made a show of looking at it.

The seller winked at him. “Genuine Wayne, I swear. I got a direct line to the old manor. People love it.”

_Why’d they kill off most of the family then_ , Jason thought sourly. But then, people always liked the dead more than the living. He should know.

“The Flying Grayson’s circus is back in town! For two weeks only!” someone called out right next to him. Jason whirled around, barely stopping himself from drawing his guns when he saw it was just a man in a bright circus costume offering him some flyers. How the hell had he not heard him approach?

The man, seeing Jason tense, lifted his hands. “Whoa, man, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Acrobats are just naturally light on their feet.” He winked.

“Right,” Jason said flatly, not exactly impressed. He turned back to the seller, and after second, felt the acrobat move away. “Wayne, you said? Got anything more?”

The man nodded, eyes glinting at the prospect of a good sale. “I might even - “, he lowered his voice, “have something of Young Master Richard.”

“Young Master Richard, huh?” Jason worked hard to infuse his voice with the right mixture of reverence and curiosity. He wasn’t exactly a con man by nature, but nurture he had.

“They say he’s still alive.”

Huh. That was a new one. Jason let his eyes widen, let his surprise show. “What - why do you think that?”

By now, the seller was whispering. “Bruce Wayne - you know, the only survivor - he’s set out a reward for anyone who can bring his son to Metropolis. One million dollars.”

Jason whistled. So Brucie had decided to offer money, after all? Didn’t mean there was anything behind that - could just be him holding up appearances. But if there was anything the old Bat knew…

His mind whirling, he selected one memento that he very much doubted came from Wayne Manor - a rather glittery candlestick - and one that might have, a small belt with a bat on its buckle. Rather obvious of Bruce, but then, nobody had put the pieces together yet. Handing over even the little money this cost him made him wince internally, but if the plan that was starting to assemble in his mind worked… it was worth it.

 

Back in their current safe houses, he was greeted by the sight of his best friend on a couch, surrounded by small cloud of smoke. Jason sighed. He wasn’t a big fan of the weed, but hey, whatever helped Roy not buy that vodka. At least he had this particular addiction under control.

Still, he didn’t take the joint his best friend offered him, just sat down next to him and said, “Got an idea how we’ll get that money.”

Roy lifted a preemptive finger. “No drugs!”

“No drugs, just a good old fashioned scam on people who can afford it.”

“Who the fuck is that supposed to be, in these days? No rich anymore, in case you missed every single news outlet telling you so. And the politicians. And the pamphlets. And the billboards. And… ” At Jason’s glare, Roy sighed and gave in. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

“Young Master Richard, of course.”

Roy groaned rather dramatically. “Not you too, Jason! I can’t stand listening to that bullshit anymore. They fucking nuked that mansion, no way did anyone survive that, Batcave or not.”

“Wasn’t a nuke, just a normal missile,” Jason corrected him just to be a dick.

“Whatever. Unless he’s pulling a you I don’t think he walked out of there. Do you?”

Jason shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? What matters is that _Bruce Wayne_ believes it. And is willing to pay one million dollars to anyone who brings him to Metropolis.” It was where Wayne had fled to after the manor had been blown up during the revolution and all riches confiscated.

Roy looked a bit more interested now. “So what? We go looking for lost lordlings? Heh, that’s quite good.” He laughed.

“We don’t need the real thing… just someone who’s close enough.”

“Are you nuts? We won’t be the only ones with that idea. The Bat will test - oh.” Realization set in. “Except we know what he will test the candidates in.” Roy thought about it for a moment. “Jason, that’s _brilliant_.”

“Damn right it is.”

“As long as you don’t identify yourself…”

“Believe me,” Jason assured him drily, “I have no intention of doing that. You contact Kori? Better she meets us at the border than sneak back in and right out again.”

Roy was already pulling out his ‘watch’, ready to send a signal, when he paused. “Wait. How are we going to find a Richard doppelganger? Can’t exactly put on a casting show.”

That was the flaw in this plan. “Call Kori. Then we’ll go look. Somewhere.”

 

So of course he bumped into that acrobat guy again.

“Oh hi, it’s you!” The man grinned at him. “Did you get the information you were looking for from that seller?”

Jason frowned. “Excuse me?”

The other man gave a shrug that Jason was pretty sure was supposed to be an imitation of his own. “You know. You were asking about the Waynes without actually doing so. Pretty clever.”

“At least I wasn’t listening in on stuff that isn’t my business.” Jason’s tone was acerbic. He was about to leave the guy in the dust again, this time for good, when Roy’s voice interrupted him. “Might be his business, actually.”

Jason looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Roy, who looked like he was suppressing a grin, gestured at the man. What? He was tall, with an athlete’s build, black long-ish hair, light blue eyes, tan skin… oh.

Jason grunted. Roy might have a point.

At least the guy now looked slightly discomfited by his obvious once over.

Roy smiled at him reassuringly. “What’s your name?”

“Uh. Dick.”

Jason had to violently bite his tongue to keep from making the obvious joke. Dick clearly noticed anyway, judging by his grin.

“Where are you from, Dick?” Roy asked.

“Flying Grayson’s circus?”

“Born and raised there?” Might make it more difficult if the man had an easily traceable past.

“No, I - I was found when I was a teenager.”

“Found?”

“Got injured during the revolution.” He paused for a moment, rubbing his neck. “I don’t really remember anything from before.” Hmm. This was looking more and more perfect. “Look, what - are you guys intelligence or something? Why are you asking me these things?”

“What is it that you want from us?” Jason shot back.

The man - Dick - smiled at him with obvious charm. It was working, but Jason wasn’t buying the innocent act. “Want from you?”

“You followed me. You’re letting Roy question you despite being supposed to distribute more leaflets. You want something. What is it?”

There’s a second where he could see Dick think. Then something in his posture relaxed even as he lifted his chin. “I need to get to Metropolis. Someone is waiting for me.”

“Who?”

But Dick shook his head. “I don’t know. I just have feeling… maybe a memory? It sounds stupid, I know.”

Strangely, Jason believed him. Not that it mattered. “Okay, here’s the deal. We got some insider information about the Waynes. You look a lot like the lost son. We train you, we get you there, we get the money. You get to live in riches, be in Metropolis as long as you want to be.”

“...train me?”

Roy opened his mouth to answer, but Jason elbowed him into the side less than subtly. No need to disclose everything being Richard Wayne would entail before Dick said yes. “You eaten at a banquet recently, pretty boy?” he replied instead. “Know how to address royalty? Hobnobbing with the best? What about your relations? There’s a lot of stuff to learn. Don’t think this will be easy.”

Dick seemed to take that as a challenge. “I can learn that.” But then he visibly hesitated. “It doesn’t… feel right. He’s looking for his adopted son. What if I take that place away?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to keep it up. Honestly, you can reveal the scam about five minutes after we leave, for all I care. Just get us the money, and we’ll get you the ride. Then you can go off meeting whoever it is.”

Beside him, Roy nodded. “And hey, you said you don’t know about your past, right? Who knows, you _could_ be Richard.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Right.” He considered it. “I stay with my circus till our run here is over. We can… learn etiquette in the mornings.”

Roy and Jason nodded. That suited their nightly schedule well.

“I have no idea why I’m doing this.” Dick shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. But… yes.”

Roy fistpumped unabashedly. Jason just wondered if they just bit off more than they could chew.

 

“So let me get this straight,” Dick asked, “ _you two_ are going to teach me etiquette?”

Asshole. Jason smiled in that way he knew showed all his teeth. “Nope.” Then he hit Dick in the face.

Dick took the impact, somersaulted and landed a few feet away.

For a moment, they stared at each other.

Roy sat down and watched them with the air of someone who was wishing for popcorn.

Finally, Dick broke. “...if this is your way of telling me Richard was a victim of domestic violence, I’m out of here.”

“Nah, pretty sure Wayne never hit him.” Roy thought about that for a second, then added, “outside of training, I mean. Congrats, Dick, you’ve just been cast as Robin.”

“Robin? But he’s in Metropolis…”

“Having miraculously stayed a teen?” Jason snorted. “Richard was the first. Obviously, there’s been _replacements_ since then.” And if that came out a tiny bit bitter, then no one commented on it.

For a moment Dick’s eyes closed. Then he shook his head as if to clear it. “I keep thinking I remember fights - but -“

No surprise there. Pretty much everyone who made it through that day either fought or hid. Seeing Dick had ended up with amnesia, Jason was pretty sure he knew which one he’d chosen.

“Well, better remember quickly then,” Roy commented. Jason just threw another punch.

This time, Dick evaded him completely, trying to get to his other side, but got caught by his elbows. To Jason’s surprise, he didn’t go down, just blocked the next hit, dropped to the ground and rolled away, on his feet again within seconds.

“Not bad,” Jason admitted, grudgingly impressed. “Still need to attack instead of just running away, though.”

“Attack - “ Dick sounded disbelieving. “Who exactly are you guys?”

“Oh, _now_ he asks,” Roy murmured, rolling his eyes. As if on cue, his watch beeped. “I’m Roy, and that’s Kori - Princess Koriand’r to you - calling. She’ll be the one teaching you etiquette. And that ray of sunshine there is Jason.”

“You’re vigilantes.”

“Smart cookie.” With that, Roy turned away and took the call.

This time, Jason didn’t punch Dick. He used a leg combo instead.

 

Two long weeks later, they were finally sitting in an old-fashioned train compartment, their (fake) passports holding those coveted (fake) stamps that would allow them to pass the border.

“Nah, they’re fine with it. I’m almost too old for them, anyway. Kids are better,” Dick waved Roy’s questions about the circus away. “They rescued me and I’ll miss them and everything, but it’s not like they have elephants.”

“Elephants.” Jason tried very hard not to make that a question.

Dick grinned at him. “Elephants are awesome.”

It might have devolved into yet another fistfight, had the conductor not chosen to enter at that moment. “Your passports, please, comrades.”

“Of course, sir,” Roy smiled easily, handing his over, and Jason and Dick followed suit.

For a minute, the conductor studied them, then he nodded and passed them to the guards. “All in order, I see.”

Behind him, Jason could see one of the guards look at his own passport, then very casually moving his hand to the back of his belt. It took a second, then it finally clicked for him. The guard was going for his comm, calling for backup. “Roy, get out!”

Thankfully it only took his partner seconds to comply. He took off down the corridor. Dick was still standing there, so Jason grabbed his hand and pulled him down in the opposite direction.

“What-”

The shouts erupting behind them answered that question. “Security! Stop those men!”

“Fuck,” Jason swore, hearing the sentiment echoed by Dick. He pushed Dick into one of the carriages, letting go so he could draw his guns.

“What are you doing - Jason!”

“What,” he gritted out, already aiming at their pursuers. Exhale. Squeeze. Exhale. Squeeze. They went down in a satisfying haze, but there were more coming. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Was this a trap? Looked like an entire battalion of revolutionary guards coming at them - and from both sides.

“Jason! You’re killing them!”

“And?” he yelled back, really out of patience now. “Get your ass out of here already!”

He didn’t have time to check whether Dick obeyed, was standing with guns pointing in both directions now and mostly firing blindly at the slowly advancing troops, but the door sliding back open behind him told him that Dick hadn’t. Of course not. That would be way too fucking easy. Bullets were whirring at them now, and Jason swore, jumping into the compartment. (And thank fuck that it was empty.)

For a moment, there was silence. Jason shot a few last times into the corridor, just to buy time (he was almost out of ammo anyways), then he opened the comm link on his watch. “Kori, Roy is running southwards and is likely in need of help. Get him out.”

“On my way. Will you be alright?”

“Sure.” He caught Dick eyes for a moment, half expecting him to protest sending their rescue into the other direction, but Dick just nodded.

Within seconds, they were surrounded, and the fight began.

Dick was a flurry of movement, disarming and disabling one guard after the other in a blur. Jason, well, he knew he himself was less elegant, but he could crack a skull just as well as anyone with his fists. There wasn’t any awkwardness in the way they moved around each other - all that training had to be good for something.

“See?” Dick asked, knocking a man out with his thighs like it was nothing. “No need to kill. You shouldn’t kill.”

“Fucking hell, you sound like the bat,” Jason shouted, hitting a guard in the face with the butt of his gun just because he could. “Some people deserve it, asshole, imagine that. Or don’t, just stay the fuck out of my choices. Jesus fuck, I can’t believe your timing.”

Dick’s foot connected with the knees of the guy that had been about to accost Jason from behind. “But-”

“No,” Jason snarled, basically throwing one of the last guards standing back into the corridor before grabbing Dick again and jumping out of the open window.

The impact with the ground was jarring. For a moment, Jason couldn’t move. Then he made himself sit up, check the coast was clear. The train had left, and no one was with them. Only then did he turn to Dick - and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Dick was laughing.

“What are you laughing at, dickface?” Jason snapped, but the other just grinned at him and held up a hand.

“We make a good team, Jay.”

“Maybe,” Jason grumbled, ignoring the new nickname. “But I’m not going to high-five you, put that hand down.”

Dick did, but he was still grinning.

 

“Jason!”

Jason more or less (more of less) grudgingly let his teammates hug him.

Next to him, Dick was staring. It was always fun, seeing anyone who was even slightly into women see Kori for the first time. She was that stunning. And Jason didn’t even need to threaten those people right after - Kori could take care of herself more than well. (Sometimes he still did, but shush.)

“Alright, alright.” He pushed them away, knowing where the evening was going to go within about five minutes now that all of them were safe. “We’re walking on in the morning. You two go… reunite or something - I don’t want to know,” he added hastily, seeing Roy ready to comment, “and I especially don’t want to hear, understood?”

Roy saluted him, and even Kori didn’t put up a token protest. Oh well. They had invited him often enough, he just… wasn’t really into that.

With a grunt, Jason went to find a good, high up place to sit. He’d better take watch. That tree looked good.

He wasn’t surprised at all when Dick joined less than an hour later. Their stray didn’t strike him as the type to enjoy being alone for too long. He just kept cleaning his guns, and for a moment they sat in comfortable silence.

Dick was looking out at the city lights. From this far away, Gotham almost looked pretty. Yeah, right.

Finally, Dick cleared his throat. “I’ve left Gotham before. The circus had a special permission.”

“Why didn’t you just go to Metropolis then?” Jason asked.

“Only to the surrounding towns,” Dick clarified, “never outside the neutral zone. Could have been recruited as spies, you know.”

Jason nodded and for a moment thought the conversation was over.

“I just… I don’t know why, but I always miss Gotham when we aren’t there. And now…”

... _you can never come back_ , Jason finished the sentence silently. Someone was bound to have recognized them on that train since they hadn’t been wearing masks. It wasn’t as big a deal for Jason - legally, he was a dead man, after all - but for Dick... he was going to stake his claim on being Young Master Richard, Jason reminded himself. That would put him right into the shithouse with the revolutionary government.

Still. He hadn’t seen Dick look so… forlorn, maybe? Like someone who didn’t know what home meant, who had lost all memories of his family, his past.

“Gotham raised me,” Jason said without meaning to. But it made Dick look up, cautious curiosity replacing that emptiness, so he continued haltingly: “I mean… my parents weren’t really around. I grew up on her streets. At first, I was kinda in favour of the revolution, to be honest.” He made himself meet Dick’s gaze. “Not the bombs and stuff, but…”

“My family in the circus… they didn’t tell me much. When I woke up, I mean. Only that they found me in the rubble and that Gotham had decided to cut itself off.” Dick shrugged. “I didn’t really ask, you know, I was a bit more concerned with figuring out who I was and learning new performance routines. How did you end up being a vigilante?”

“Go to sleep.”

Dick blinked. “Um, what?”

“We’re walking the rest of the way, so you should get some rest. I’m taking watch.”

Jason was aware he was being obvious, not to mention rude, but no fucking way was he going to tell Dick about that particular disaster.

“Jason…”

“Sleep.”

After a moment in which Jason was staring down at his (now very clean) guns and could feel Dick’s eyes on him, he heard a sigh. “Alright. Good night, Jay.”

“Night.”

 

Metropolis was _nothing_ like Gotham.

“Oh my god, stop it with the googly eyes,” Jason commented irritatedly when Dick dragged him towards yet another shop window. “It’s just _stuff_.”

“ _Cool_ stuff, Jay, I haven’t seen silk in years - we had to switch to cotton - oh look, fancy wear!”

“We need to get evening wear, anyway,” Kori offered. Easy for her to say. She’d probably look stunning in a sack potatoes with the potatoes still in it.

Roy groaned. “Tell me again why Wayne offers a huge reward and then won’t see anybody who wants to claim it?”

“Cause he’s a paranoid motherfucker?” Jason offered. _And for good reason_ , he reminded himself, _Alfred isn’t there to run interference anymore_. He’d never met the butler who had been in the manor when it was blown up, but everyone had said that his new staff wasn’t the same.

Kori shook her head. “Seriously, you two, we’re going to one of the grandest events of the country, and all you do is complain?”

“Aww, babe, you know we don’t really go for that highbrow stuff,” Roy pouted. Then he brightened up. “But hey, I’ve been told my ass looks great in a suit!”

Kori looked like she could well imagine that. Roy was openly leering now. Dick was off looking at sparkly costumes. Jason couldn’t wait to get back to Gotham.

 

Dick, unsurprisingly, looked fucking amazing in a well-tailored suit. The ladies and some of the gents at the ball clearly thought so, too, judging by the group that had gathered around him. He was brilliant, joking here, flirting there, a glass of champagne in his hand like he’d never drunk anything else.

A few people came up to Jason, too, but found him very bored. He wasn’t here for networking, this time. Roy and Kori were the ones monitoring Wayne (no one was going to let Jason do diplomacy with any of the Waynes) - in fact they were talking now, the most desired bachelor and the most beautiful woman in the room making for a striking picture, drawing the eye. Even that reporter couple was hovering closeby. But Jason trusted Kori to drop the necessary hints anyway.

He was very deliberately ignoring the two young men who were Bruce’s youngest adoptees.

Inevitably, his gaze was drawn back to Dick, who was still flirting and - uh oh. Looking like he wanted to punch someone. (Jason knew that expression well. He saw it every time he looked into a mirror.) Time to run interference.

Because Jason wasn’t, at heart, a terribly original individual, he went straight up to Dick and asked: “Wanna dance?”

He was mostly sure he didn’t imagine the warmth on Dick’s face when he accepted.

There wasn’t even any awkwardness in deciding who should lead, Dick following him gracefully as always. For a few long minutes, they moved in silence - Jason hadn’t danced in a while, so he was a little rusty and needed to concentrate. Besides, he could feel Dick relax under his hands. It was nice, just moving and forgetting all the other people under the weight of Dick’s blue-eyed stare.

Then a slow song came on, and Dick pressed up against him, moving his lips close to Jason’s ear. It probably looked intimate from the outside, like a lover’s whisper, but what Dick actually said was: “This is pretty disgusting.”

“If it helps any - I have it on good authority that Wayne hates these fucking things as much as we do.”

He could feel Dick’s suppressed laughter all through his body, in the arms that held him and the strong waist under his palm, and - _fuck_.

_Don’t start wanting him now, Jason Todd. Don’t you fucking dare._

Dick must have felt him tense up, because the laughter was fading from his eyes.

“Jay?”

Jason shook his head, not quite sure if it was at himself or Dick. “He’s seen you by now. We can leave.”

At least Dick didn’t ask, just requested: “Can we walk? I need some air.”

“Sure.” A midnight walk through the romantically lit streets of Metropolis. Nothing Jason would like more. (He didn’t even know himself if that thought was sarcastic or not.)

 

They were just walking, talking about nothing, when Dick suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“I’ve been on this street before.” He started walking again, quicker than before, then almost running. “There’s a bridge over there.”

“What the-” Jason followed.

It was a large bridge with some traffic, but the sidewalk was mostly empty.

No one was looking at them or stopped.

Looking defeated, Dick leant on the railing and looked out at the river.

“I don’t know. Maybe there was some fighting here - maybe we met some informant - or maybe I’m just on the wrong path with the whole Richard thing and someone else had been waiting here and just… gave up after ten years.” He lowered his head. “I guess I won’t ever find them…”

There it was again, that urge to comfort, or at least to distract. Jason wasn’t sure what to do with that, but. He moved so could stand right next to Dick, shoulder to shoulder.

“Hey. You never know.” But those were just empty words, so he tried distraction again: “I saw him once. The boy wonder.” He couldn’t quite summon his usual sarcasm for that phrase.

Dick surreptitiously wiped his eyes and smiled at him. “Tell me?”

“I was involved with a drug gang back then.” He felt Dick flinch, that’s how close they were pressed up against the other’s side by then. “Hey, I told you I was a street rat. My mom needed the goods, and I - well, I was angry all the time, anyway. Would have ended up that way either way, I suppose.”

Dick just nudged his shoulder for that.

“Anyway, one night that particular gang got busted by Batman and Robin. Prettiest fight I’d ever seen at that point,” Jason continued, not bothering to hide that long-ago awe. “Left me standing, though. Dunno, I guess I was too young for their taste?”

Dick laughed. “You sound almost regretful.”

“Eh. Probably wouldn’t have stood a chance back then,” Jason admitted. “Anyway, Robin just smiled and left. And now that kid they saved is an armed vigilante in Gotham. Not sure that was what they intended.”

“I’m sure he’d still be glad of saving you.”

Jason snorted. “Somehow, I doubt that. Anyway, you can use that story with Bats, I suppose,” he tried to get the conversation back to safer grounds, “pretend like you were there.”

“Maybe I was?”, Dick asked playfully. “It was a dark night in Gotham. I was out with Batman…” Dick’s tone of reminiscence was clearly put on for his benefit, and Jason was glad for it. “Putting down thugs, but one of them… he was just a boy, maybe three years younger than I. Thin. Not too clean.”

Jason chuckled. Yeah, safe guess, that one.

“We left him be, and I knew Bruce was already thinking of where to find him a home, so I smiled at him and left… and then…” Dick’s voice slowed down, and he sounded amazed as he continued, “he yelled after me.”

There was a silence.

“He warned me - told me there’s a bomb in our car,” Dick breathed, his eyes fixed on Jason’s face like it held all the answers.

Jason swallowed. “I didn’t tell you about that.”

“You didn’t have to. I - I _remember_.”

Jason couldn’t bring himself to answer that.

“I _am_ Richard,” Dick said, wonder in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Jason only felt bitterness. “Yes. Yes, you are.”

 

When they reached their hotel a huge black limousine was parked in front of it.

“Wayne came to collect his lost son, I see.”

Dick took an audible deep breath, then began to walk towards the car. Jason stayed right where he was, and after a few steps, Dick noticed and turned around: “Are you not coming?”

Jason shook his head. “Nah. We don’t really get along. Go ahead.”

Still, weirdly, Dick looked like he was hesitating, and Jason felt like he should do something - kiss Dick’s knuckles, maybe, like in some old romance movie - but instead he just lifted a hand and dropped it awkwardly.

“Kori will be there to collect the reward. Good luck.”

He couldn’t have described Dick’s expression in that moment, but finally the other man nodded. Turned away. And left for a better life.

 

“News about Richard Wayne! Exclusive here!” was what the day greeted him with less than a week later in Gotham.

Jason waved the newsgirl away, but as soon as he was in one of the safehouses, he flipped on the tv to one of the illegal outside channels.

“What the?” Roy blinked away on the couch.

“They’re going to announce Dick’s return,” was what Jason said, deliberately not noticing the way Roy grimaced at his tone.

But what the screen showed, instead, was Bruce Wayne, unemotionally staring into the camera and stating: “I have been delivered conclusive proof that my adoptive son, Richard Grayson, has been killed during Gotham’s revolution. The reward will be donated to charity.”

_What_.

“Fucker,” Roy was scrambling for his phone. Then, with great relief, he announced, “Nope, the money is still there. But what the fuck?”

“Censored?”

“On Metropolis’ channel?”

“Then paranoia.”

Yeah. That was probably it. Bats not wanting to offer more targets for the nuts that were trying to finish what had been started. Some of those fuckers even had supporters in Metropolis. And Dick would have hated being a socialite again. They probably came to a nice arrangement, Dick rising in society again, living the life he was meant for.

Just like Jason was living his.

 

“Oh, hi, Hoodie-Hood!”

Some things never changed.

“Hi, Harley. Robbing a bank again?”

The woman pouted. “It’s boooring. No money in here, no Bats or birdies in Gotham, no one to fight… and Ivy is on vacation.”

Jason ignored the urge to ask _Do I not count?_ , instead going for: “Vacation?”

Harley Quinn shrugged as well as a woman hanging upside down from a barrister could. “Or business. But _fun_ business, and I couldn’t come.”

Jason sighed and put his guns away. These were the kind of times where he thought he’d been in Gotham too long. Not that Harley was harmless, not by any means, even with the Joker dead and buried, but he wasn’t about to kill her anytime soon. “Have your fun somewhere with less civilians? Like the new military base, maybe?”

Harley’s face brightened. “Aww, Hoodikins, you have the best ideas! I loove these men in uniform.” She somersaulted down and gave him a kiss on the cheek of his helmet. “See, this is why you’re my favourite vigilante.”

“I’m hurt.”

That hadn’t been either of them. Both Jason and Harley whirled around, guns drawn instantly. There was a masked man in a black and blue suit smiling winningly at them.

“Whoa. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Harley very clearly was giving him the once over, and Jason couldn’t blame her. That was a Very Tight Suit. And a body he recognized, he realized suddenly. It was all he could stop himself from blurting out his name, instead going for: “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Dick grinned at him. Jason just knew how his eyes were crinkling under that mask. “Oh, just dropping by, introducing myself to the local criminals and vigilantes. You know how it goes.”

“Aww, gorgeous, you two know each other?” Harley broke in. She was beaming.

“I’m Nightwing.” What the fuck. “I’d be very politely asking you to stop robbing this bank, but I think you two already sorted that one out?”

But Harley was beginning to look like she changed her mind about bothering the military. A new challenge was probably just what she needed.

Jason had enough. “Come to the safe house we first met in.” He and the outlaws had avoided all their shared haunts so far, just out of good old caution, but he wasn’t going to give him his address with Harley right there. “You two… fight it out, or something.”

Later, he would deny it, but with that he turned and ran.

 

“I’ve been here for over a week. You’re difficult to find.”

“Meant to be. What are you doing here, Dick?” Jason asked.

“I didn’t want to live that life,” Dick explained slowly, his eyes searching Jason’s face. For what, Jason didn’t know. “This is more important.”

“What about Bruce?”

“I can still go see him. The whole family. We arranged for that.” He hesitated. “So could you, you know. Bruce told me…”

Jason wasn’t going to touch that one.

“So you’re here to fight crime now? Metropolis too boring for you?”

“I’m just Dick Grayson now.” Dick ignored his words, walking towards him instead.

“Jason - surely - _surely_ you know why I’m here.” Dick was standing very close now, and his hands were grabbing Jason’s face to pull him even closer. He looked desperate. “Tell me you know I’m here for you.”

Maybe Dick was right - maybe, after all they’d been through in those two weeks, it wasn’t that surprising that they were here now, clinging to each other in a dingy warehouse in Gotham. But Jason genuinely had never considered that Dick would - that Dick could -

Dick chose him. Chose _him_ , and Gotham, over being rich and safe and a Wayne. Jason didn’t quite know how to deal with that, but he figured kissing Dick was a good start.


End file.
